1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to tractor feed printers and, in particular, to devices for separating the side edge guide strips on the sides of tractor-fed printer paper from the main body of the paper.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many printers connected to computers print on a continuous sheet of paper, such as business invoices and the like. The continuous sheet of paper can be separated into individual sheets of paper when desired by tearing the continuous sheet along longitudinally-spaced and transversely-extending lines of perforations. The continuous sheet of paper is fed through the printer by means of side edge guide strips which are formed on opposite sides of the continuous sheet. The side edge guide strips have holes which extend along their lengths at regularly spaced-apart intervals which match the spacing of sprocket teeth on peripheral surfaces of sprocket wheels which are positioned on opposite sides of the printer. The sprocket wheels are driven to provide a tractor feed mechanism for feeding the paper through the printer.
The side edge guide strips are usually manually torn from the opposite sides of the individual sheets of paper after the individual sheets are torn from the continuous sheet of paper. This can be a tedious and time-consuming task. Solutions have been proposed in the prior art to perform this task automatically,. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,188,347 issued to Fulk discloses a cutting device for cutting strips from the side edge of a continuous paper form using a cutting blade. U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,246 issued to Patz discloses a device for removing the side edges of a paper web which uses a U-shaped housing having a feed slot and a rotating cutting disk mounted within the slot. U.S. Pat. No. 5,120,144 issued to Lund discloses a paper separator that has a tractor feed mechanism that causes a divergence in the paths of the body of the paper form and the side edge strip to cause separation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,543 issued to Downing discloses a parting tool for a tractor feed printer that uses a blade intersecting the plane of the paper for shaving the paper along the perforations connecting the guide strip to the sheets of paper. U.S. Pat. No. 5,346,321 issued to Eudy discloses an edge strip trimmer that uses an edge strip hold-down device to remove the edge strips by progressively diverging the plane of the edge strip from the plane of the paper sheet as the paper sheets are fed through the printer.
Various other proposed solutions are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,404 issued to Hacker, U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,551 issued to Rutherford, U.S. Pat. No. 5,516,221 issued to Lake, U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,581 issued to Taylor, and Australian Patent No. 241,251 issued to Castleton. All of these prior art solutions tend to be overly complicated and expensive, and many require knife blades, rollers, or other elements requiring maintenance. Thus, there is a need in the industry for an improved device to separate and remove side edge guide strips from printer paper.
An object of the present invention is to provide a simpler yet highly reliable device to separate and remove the side edge guide strips from computer paper as it leaves the printer.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a paper strip removal device that can be installed quickly and easily to existing computer printers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a paper strip removal device that is economical to manufacture, efficient and reliable in use, capable of a long operating life, and particularly well suited for use with existing tractor-fed printers.
To accomplish these and other objects, a paper strip removal device for removing side edge guide strips from tractor-fed computer printer paper is provided by the present invention. The paper strip removal device has first and second plate members rigidly attached together in a spaced apart parallel relationship to one another so as to define a narrow slot therebetween wide enough to receive a marginal side edge portion of a printer paper with its side edge guide strip thereon through the slot. The plate members each have a planar main body portion and a corner portion separated from the main body portion by a narrow slit that extends from a front edge of the plate member toward a rear edge thereof. The corner portions are angled downwardly away from the planar main body portions to create a path for the side edge guide strip that diverges abruptly from a path created by the main body portions for the marginal side edge portion of the printer paper. The diverging paths cause the side edge guide strip to be removed from the marginal side edge portion without using a cutting blade or other moving parts.
Numerous other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in this art from the following description wherein there is shown and described a preferred embodiment of the present invention, simply by way of illustration of one of the modes best suited to carry out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modification in various obvious aspects without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and description should be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive.